Building Trust across Cultures

It’s a truism that trust matters in the workplace: when colleagues trust one another, not only do we feel better, but we accomplish more. Trust, though, doesn’t always come easily: evolution has programmed our unconscious minds to be sensitive to potential threats, and where there is threat there is no trust. To make matters even more challenging, our cultures have given us varied ways of perceiving, establishing, and maintaining trust: what builds trust in one culture might harm it in another. What may be an acceptable way of doing things for one can quickly become offensive or troublesome to another. In this skill-building workshop, you will: become aware of how our minds can trick us into mistrusting others; consider ways in which we can find alternative interpretations of others’ behaviors; and learn how we might adapt our behavior to other cultures’ norms of establishing trust.